Seriously?

 Two year old boys are my favorite animal species.

Cookie Cutter Babies

There's just no family resemblance in our family at all.... hmmm....

Baby Britt

Baby Emery

Baby Izzy

Father and Sons/Girls Night Out

A few weeks before Izzy was born, Aaron got to take Van on his 1st Father and Sons campout.  They had a blast!

The worlds coolest dad (aka Aaron) set up a trucks course with the extra firewood for all of the little (and not so little as you can see from the picture) to play on.  It was a big hit!!

Sleepy tent face

Potty shot.  Ha. 

Cute boys hiking after the campout

Silly hiking boys

Since Emery and I were home without the boys, we did a Girls Night/Day Out (and in).   We went to Cafe Rio with Grandma and then home to watch a movie, stay up past bedtime, paint our nails and snuggle in mom's bed.  The next day she went to my BFF's bridal shower with me - a big girl event for a big, good girl.  I had so much fun spending time with just my girl. 

I even did a quadrouple French braid in her wet hair.... something we'd been wanting to do for a while.  End result...

We took all the French braids out in the morning and she had this pretty curly hair for her big girl day

The many faces of Izzy

Izzy played a little game during Sunday School last week: "How many faces can I make in 2 minutes?" (While mom takes a million pictures on her iPhone... during Sunday School...)  We can't resist this face!!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to three great dads in my life!

#1 - To my Daddy - Thanks for giving me your energy and contagious zest for life.  I couldn't be more grateful for your genetics!!  And thanks for showing me how to love my kids fiercely - just how you love me.  :)

 #2 - To my Hubby - Thanks for being so patient with our kids when my patience is all fused out.  Thanks for being a fun, silly, hands-on dad.  Oh yeah, and thanks for being the best bedtime story-teller and dish doer there ever was.  Your kids adore you, and I adore you for that.  P.S.  And you make me the world's most beautiful babies. 

#3 - To my Dad-in-law - Thanks for making me your favorite (okay, only...) daughter-in-law and for loving, teasing and counseling me like one of your own daughters.  I'll love you forever for it.  And thanks for raising one heck of a son for me to marry.

Dolphins at the Mirage

The weekend before Izzy was born we went to see the dolphin habitat at the Mirage.  It is such a cool facility and it was so fun to watch the trainers work with the dolphins.  As a research facility they don't do "shows" with the dolphins, they just bring the trainers out to exercise the dolphins and we all get to watch.  It is really fun.  We even had a trainer who sat and talked with our kids one-on-one at the edge of the pool, teaching them all about dolphins, while she worked with her dolphin.  It was so fun!  Aaron and I actually learned a lot too.  Needless to say, Emery has big plans to be a dolphin trainer someday.  That and Rapunzel at DisneyLand!   It is also the home of Sigfried and Roy's Secret Garden, so we got to see all of the tigers, white tigers, lions, panthers, etc. too. 

Watching the dolphins at the underground area.

Our dolphin saying hello!!

Em up on dad's shoulders to see the tigers. 

We could have watched this guy prowl around all day.  He was intense!

Easter at our house

I realize this is really late... but this is my journal and Easter needs to make an appearance! 

My best friend grilled me last year for not being very festive for Easter.  She was right!!  It is a pretty important holiday and, most importantly, gives us a chance to teach our kids about Jesus Christ.  Easter was fun this year and we did lots of things to celebrate!

Had some friends over for an Easter BBQ.  I tried my hand at cake decorating.  Not bad, eh?

Made these cute little nests to give to friends.  Aren't they adorable?

Decorated eggs, of course!

Our favorite thing we did was go do an Easter egg hunt with our friends the Irvins up at Red Rock.  We did a couple of little hikes and bouldered a little bit while we were there, too.  The kids had so much fun!

Silly Van and dad faces.

We had 6 kids hunting so the dads hid about 100 eggs.  They had so much fun finding them!

Van showing us what was in his eggs.  He had a hard time focusing on finding more than one egg.  He'd find one, open it, eat it, and then go look for more. 

Jersey and Van love each other. 

Cute girls sitting on a big rock.

Cute girls sitting under a big rock.

And look!  Izzy was there too!!

Things we love about Izzy

These are my attempt at 1 week photos.  Not too bad!!  :)  (If she looks concerned that she's in the basket, she was.  We only got a few pictures before she decided she was done in the basket.)

There are lots of things we already love about Izzy... most of them apparent from right when she was born.

• her LOOOONG monkey arms
• her skinny little body - she only has chubby cheeks, everywhere else is skinny
• her teeny, tiny nose - smaller than Em's even and might be as tiny as mine when I was born (people used to ask my parents if I could breath out of it!)
• all of her dark hair!! - can't wait to see what color it ends up!
• she loves to be snuggled - my 1st snuggly newborn!!
• she is my sleepiest newborn by far - maybe she won't quit napping before she's two!
  
• she has great smiles and equally great scowls
• how much she looks like Emery and I's newborn pics - I've actually called her Emery several times because the resemblance is so strong - it's like rewinding 4 1/2 years
• how Van calls her "Tiny Izzy" - so cute
• how Emery would hold and kiss her all day every day
• she makes our other kids, especially Van, seem HUGE!!! 
• even though she isn't a super tiny baby, she's so petite that people's first reaction is always "she's so tiny!  how much did she weigh?"  when I say 7lb 6oz they say "oh? that isn't very small!"  i think we just forget how small they are!!
• she turned us into a family of 5!  we love that our family is growing and we are so happy she's here!